29 Nepalis, 14 Indians held with forged Nepali passports

The Department of Immigration (DoI) has seized 43 forged Nepali hand-written passports used by both Nepali and Indian nationals in the month of December, 2011. This is the biggest seizure of forged passports in a month, officials said. Around 95 people were arrested till November, 2011 for possessing forged passports. The number of such seizures in 2010 was just 48. All, 29 Nepali and 14 Indian nationals, were arrested at the Tribhuvan International Airport (TIA). DoI said the original photographs in the passports were tampered with. Of those arrested, 31 are female. Most of the females had been sent to Kuwait and Saudi Arab for employment, DoI study confirmed. “We have found that 90 percent of the women arrested for possessing fake passports are from poor families with no other breadwinner in the house,” said Ganesh Bahadur Adhikari, an official at DoI. DoI has filed cases against all arrested. However, no person involved in the passport forgery racket has been arrested so far as the victims don’t have adequate information about them. Anju Lama, 36, who possessed a fake passport in the name of Menuka Rawat and sent to Kuwait in 2010, during DoI interrogation said, “The details in this passport are not mine, the passport belongs to Menuka Rawat.” She said she was handed the fake passport by a person named Shankar Lama but she doesn’t have enough information about him. Anju, who is originally from Jajarkot, was arrested at TIA on December 17, 2011. The DoI officials argued that the porous Indo-Nepal border is the main reason behind forgery of passports. “Nepali passport holders in Kathmandu shouldn’t be allowed to take flights from Delhi,” they opined.